18 December 2014

KENYA : KBF Urged to Change the 2015 Premier League Format

By Dann O?werre
Stakeholders including
former officials, coaches and players want the league decided into two
conferences to cut down on the number of weeks.
They feel that would reduce the number of matches and make the league end earlier in December.
Agina Wesonga, former KBF chairman and now Fiba Africa commissioner,
Nairobi Basketball Association (NBA) chairman Ronny Owino and Sprite
Storms coach Ben Oluoch want the number of matches reduced to have the
league end in time and give the necessary break to the players.
"Conferences is the only way the number of matches in this league can be
reduced.
Unless we do that, our league will continue to run until late December," noted Agina.
Owino said the ball is in KBF's court adding, "The most realistic way
to run this league with the many teams is to divide them into two
groups of say eight or 10 then have them play about 16 to 20 matches
before grouping them for the play-offs," observed Owino.
The reaction follows fixtures secretary Joseph Amoko's decision to push the women's finals to next month.
Oluoch said: "We shot ourselves in the foot earlier this year after
teams failed to endorse the conference format. Now let us bite the
bullet and look at ways to have things changed before the start of new
season."
The women's semi-finals pitting favourites United States
International University (USIU) and Co-operative Bank of Kenya have been
scheduled for next year.
The other semis pitting Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and Storms is on this weekend after which they will take a break.
Both KPA and USIU were away in Tunisia for the Fiba Africa club show, where none of the Kenyan giants won a single game.
The teams finished the nine-team event in the eight and ninth
position. KPA over the weekend romped to a 68-41 win over Ulinzi
'Blades' to win the series 2-0.